Fishing sessions are short and sweetLee Rayner | First Published: July 2017

With cold water and cold, short days the bay is still offering some great fishing options for July. Over the coming weeks it really becomes a matter of getting onto the fish when the weather allows you to get on the water. While the timeframes may be a bit more limiting, on the upside the short sessions in the good weather windows tend to produce great fishing.

Mordialloc To Black Rock

In Mordialloc Creek the mullet will be in full swing this month. July generally produces the best numbers and also the bigger models. Among the mullet there have also been a good bream and even the odd trevally to about 500g.

Out on the pier itself garfish have been around in reasonable numbers too. Some days the mullet have been into the action, especially on the first half of the pier.

Off the end in the deeper water there have been pinkies some evenings. Along the north side of the pier, when the weather is calm and the water clear, squid have been around in decent numbers.

Out in the boats the pinkies have been going reasonably well all along the shallow reefs between Mordialloc and Parkdale. While the sizes haven’t been great over the past weeks, the number of pinkies in the 25-35cm size has been great. Adding to this the squid numbers through this area and up through Mentone and into Beaumaris Bay have been great with loads of smaller calamari around and some bigger models being taken out in the deeper water.

Up at Beaumaris Pier and the surrounding rocky shoreline, now is the time to get out and get into the calamari with plenty of them on offer during the dawn and dusk periods. If you’re in a boat then it’s even better, as there are endless patches of reef you can drift over for both squid and pinkies.

Up off Rickets Point and along to Black Rock pinkies are in full swing with plenty of smaller fish to be found over the past weeks. If you’re after a few better-sized pinkies, cast either a larger soft plastic or try using bigger baits. I’ve also found over the years that not using berley when bait fishing often keeps the smaller fish from moving to your area in droves. This allows the bigger fish time to get hold of your baits.

The shoreline to the north of the marine park heading to Half Moon Bay Boat Ramp is also a great area over the coming weeks to walk along the rock wall chasing squid, especially if you can get a high tide late in the afternoon, as the calamari will move into these areas to feed.

Sandringham To St Kilda

Great land-based fishing options are on offer in this area for July with the Hampton Rock Groynes producing pinkies and flathead of an evening. Over the past weeks the daylight hours have had some regular catches of garfish and squid for the anglers fishing over the weed beds.

Of an evening there have also been quite a few boats fishing the area just out from the rocky groynes known as the ‘Gully.’ While I haven’t had any reports from this area, the number of boats fishing in there would indicate that there is some good pinkie fishing on offer.

Further along towards Brighton the breakwall and its surrounds have been producing decent pinkies up to 45cm and a few nice flathead for the land-based anglers. While out in the boats there have been some great catches of pinkies of 40-45cm for anglers using fresh squid out in 6-8m of water, especially when it has been a bit rough.

Further up around North Road Boat Ramp it’s the perfect time to chase calamari on the abundant shallow reef that runs through this part of the bay. With the cold, clean water it’s also the prime to time to chase the red mullet that seem to love this area. The best technique on them seems to be using pieces of peeled prawns or a small soft plastic.

St Kilda To Port Melbourne

Cold water has slowed the fishing in this area a bit over the past weeks. If you have a boat and enjoy chasing bream then there is some great fishing to be had over this month with some really big fish on offer for lure anglers casting soft plastics and hardbodied lures at moored boats. Best of all, some of the most productive fishing is had during the day when the sun warms the surface of the water a little to get the fish really active.

If bait fishing is more of your scene then the cunjevoi beds out in 6-10m of water between Kerford Road Pier and Lagoon Pier are producing pinkies. At times you can also find solid winter snapper in this area. If a bigger snapper or even a big winter mulloway are a target then it’s also worth putting in the hours out the front of the old Princess Pier, as this area tends to attract big fish, especially during the winter months.

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Now is a great time to get into some calamari.

James experienced some quality fishing from Westernport fishing the Middle Spit and Tyabb Bank. James managed a lovely bag of squid on evergreen jigs.

The author is always playing around with his sounder and found in this case there was loads of small bait and clutter in the water. Check out the two big fish sitting in the middle of the bait. With 200khz in this instance he was running a low gain for a

The squid numbers through this area and up through Mentone and into Beaumaris Bay have been great with loads of smaller calamari around. Some bigger models have been taken out in the deeper water.